Intel Introduces the New Intel Xeon E5-2600 Product Family

The new Intel Xeon processor E5-2600 family will support up to eight cores per processor, up to 16 threads per processor and up to 768GB of system memory. It also promises to increase the raw computing performance by up to 80 percent (as reported by benchmarks such as SPECCPU) when compared to the previous-generation Intel Xeon processor 5600 series. The new family of processors will also support the latest Intel Advanced Vector Extension (Intel AVX) instruction set that was introduced with their Sandy Bridge line of products. The new AVX instruction set has proven to help boost performance on compute-intensive applications such as financial analysis, media content creation and high performance computing by up to 2 times.

The Intel Xeon E5-2600 series also support additional built-in technologies such as Intel Turbo Boost Technology 2.0, Intel Hyper-Threading Technology and Intel Virtualization Technology. With Turbo Boost Technology 2.0, the Xeon processor will automatically boost its processor frequency to meet the compute demands of the applications without sacrificing stability and reliability while Hyper-Threading will double the number of threads available to applications. As a comparison, the previous generation Xeon 5690 with one active core could turbo up to 266MHz while the new E5-2690 can increase its frequency by as much as 900MHz.

In terms of energy efficiency, the Intel Xeon processor E5-2600 product family will continue Intel's focus on reducing total cost of ownership by improving energy efficient performance more than 50 percent as measured by SPECpower_ssj*2008 compared to the previous generation Intel Xeon processor 5600 series. These processors offer support for tools to monitor and control power usage such as Intel Node Manager and Intel Data Center Manager, which provide accurate, real-time power and thermal data to system management consoles.

When it comes to handling data traffic within the data center, the Intel Xeon processor E5-2600 product family meets these needs with Intel Integrated I/O (Intel IIO) and Intel Data Direct I/O (Intel DDIO). Intel DDIO allows Intel Ethernet controllers and adapters to route I/O traffic directly to processor cache, reducing trips to system memory while effectively reducing power consumption and I/O latency. The Intel Xeon processor E5-2600 product family is also the first server processors to integrate the I/O controller supporting PCI Express 3.0 directly into the microprocessor. This integration reduces latency up to 30 percent as compared to prior generations.

Refer to the tables below for a summary of the processor features between the new Xeon E5-2600 product family and the previous Xeon 5600 Series, and the pricing of the entire line-up of the new Intel Xeon E5-2600 product family.